Your Right to Know

Enlarge ImageRequest to buy this photoBARBARA J. PERENIC | DISPATCHThe Otterbein University Police Department, organized in 2011, has an agreement with Westerville that allows it to enforce laws on city roads that border or cross the campus.

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine wants to enter the legal fight over whether the arrest records
and incident reports of private police forces are public records.

DeWine asked the Ohio Supreme Court on Friday to accept his arguments supporting a lawsuit filed
by a former Otterbein University student journalist seeking police records from the private
Westerville school.

Since the Otterbein police department — and others at private universities and hospitals — is a
creation of state law, they are public offices required to turn over records, DeWine’s office wrote
in a friend-of-the-court brief.

Otterbein responded in its court filings that its police records are not public because it is a
private institution neither funded nor controlled by state government. The university has asked the
justices to dismiss the lawsuit.

Since state law grants officers working for private employers police powers that include arrest
authority, private police forces are subject to Ohio’s public-records law, DeWine’s office wrote in
its filing.

“The Otterbein Police Department was created by the government and could not exist independent
of the government,” the filing stated. The state also certifies and regulates police officers
working for private institutions, it added.

Jennifer Pearce, an Otterbein spokeswoman, said, “We share the attorney general’s goals of
transparency and campus safety and we think our position is better suited to achieve those
outcomes. We’re a private university, not a public office.”

DeWine’s office declined to comment on its filing.

DeWine called for private police records to be made public after
The Dispatch reported more than 800 state-certified officers work for 39 employers in
Ohio. But unlike government police, they have not been required to make records public.

“We are gratified that the attorney general has decided to file an amicus brief on the side of
the student journalists,” said John C. Greiner, a Cincinnati lawyer representing Schiffbauer.

The Society of Professional Journalists’ Legal Defense Fund and the Ohio Coalition for Open
Government have contributed $6,500 to underwrite Schiffbauer’s legal fees.

In addition to its on-campus duties, Otterbein police are authorized by Westerville to write
tickets and make arrests on city streets bordering and running through campus.